Teaching History in a Home School setting can be a challenge, especially when we are faced with teaching ages 11 and up through High School. Most of us learned what little history we know from textbooks that sucked the life out of the stories and bored us nearly to death. A few of us were fortunate enough to run across writers of histories who are anything BUT boring. Historians like Dr. Warren Carroll whose books (like the very short 1917, Isabella, and Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness, and the heavy duty Christendom series) challenged and delighted … Continue reading
Tag Archives: home school
Oh my home school book loving friends I have run across a new to me author who is MARVELOUS! Henry Melton writes books with teen age protagonists who face real science fiction scenarios in the modern world. The writing is fast paced, the characters well developed, and there is none of that anti-parent propaganda so popular in most modern youth books. Themes in his books encourage communication between the generations, respectful relationships, learning about the sciences, and becoming active rather than passive in living. Breaking Anchor is the first of his books I read. I found in this book a … Continue reading
I enjoy The History Blog and thought it might be useful for home school. I could see that reading it could help students select topics for papers, and learn about what is out there in general. All sorts of history comes up on this blog: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/ For example, an item stolen at the end of WWII, returned by the auction house: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/24059 There is a post with the picture of a cradle from around 79AD: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/24035 This is a varied and fascinating blog and just reading it could make a person better educated. Dear Lord, thank You for marvelous blogs … Continue reading
Beginning to home school preschool/pre-K and selected some materials for a classical curriculum and some materials from Catholic Heritage Curricula, I have purchased a home copy of the music program Making Music Praying Twice. This is a really well done early music education program. First, it is fun and can be done very informally. Mom sings and dances and enjoys the music while supplying shakers and other small instruments and scarves of light flow-y material, and the children join in as they please. It is aimed at demonstrating the DOING of music and not passive enjoyment. Second, there is a … Continue reading
The very BEST writing curriculum is designed in the family with good reading and child-interest directed writing assignments. It has two stages. STAGE ONE: Read lots to your children. Read good quality writing from every genre that you want to teach your child to write. Journalism? Read great journalism to the children. Speeches? Read the great speeches to your children. Mysteries? Adventure? Drama? Science Fiction? Fantasy? All of the written word, provided it is quality, is the right material to read to your children. Also part of reading is allowing your children access to lots of good quality writing. Encourage … Continue reading
The last two blog entries on vocation (Progressing In My Vocation and Unsticking My Vocation) have led to my thinking about the woman of Proverbs 31. She is, in the ideals of her time period, a very capable woman whose thrift and hard work make it possible for her husband to join the important elders of the community. “There are so many ways!” you told me dejectedly. There need to be many, so that each soul can find its own in that wonderful variety. Bewildered? Make your choice once and for all: and the confusion will turn into certainty. (THE … Continue reading
I used to wonder how I would ever know what to do with my life. Many persons have asked this question. It is a huge struggle because each of us has many possible paths we could take and are generally young and inexperienced when we make some pretty major choices. I remember looking at the wide range of my interests and abilities and despairing of ever figuring out what I was expected to do with all of that! Which way did God want me to go? Which way did I want to go? Were they the same? Were all decisions … Continue reading
I am a teacher. Certified for 1st-8th grades and experienced in classroom and home school settings. I love teaching and find that most things I do in my life include teaching in some form or another. This explains why I love blogs that are about home school. Today I read the blog, My Life in the Domestic Church, and she was writing about how they do summer school, which is merely a variation on how they do school year round. Excellent post so be sure to go read her blog. I could relate to what she wrote about doing school … Continue reading
I firmly believe in Catholic home school materials. Not so much for indoctrination, but because it is important to me to demonstrate to my children that our Faith is to inform every area of our lives and this includes our learning. Catholic science texts, for example: I LOVED using the books from SETON because along side the usual science materials they included sidebars with little blurbs on famous scientists and their Faith. It was wonderful, I grew up a science geek, so I love everything science, and having a science book that showed my kids how it was really truly … Continue reading
The Chant Cafe had a marvelous post titled Doing Something About It rather than merely complaining about a problem. VERY GOOD. In this case, it is about the music for Mass and the persons who are working hard to DO SOMETHING about the problem rather than just complaining about it. In particular, I found the upcoming Words With Wings interesting and exciting. I hope to get this when it comes out so that I can use it in my home school efforts. House Unseen, Life Unscripted, is a blog I very much enjoy so when I saw the article Why … Continue reading